TCS shuffles top management to grow and retain young talent

MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT services company, has seen a number of top-level changes in the past few months, moves that experts ascribe to a need to create job growth for the company's higher management and prevent loss of talent.

TCS has the most stable management in the Indian IT industry, unlike its Bengaluru-based rivals Infosys and Wipro. But though move of its head of business process services Abid Ali Neemuchwala to Wipro was well-publicised, there have been others that slipped below the radar.

Vish Iyer, who was the company's president — Asia Pacific, was replaced by Girish Ramachandran in Janauary. Iyer is now global head for legal and corporate affairs, TCS' investor relations page shows.

J Rajagopal, executive vice president and global head for consulting, stepped down from the role December, his profile on professional social networking site Linkedin shows. The responsibility for consulting was moved to Krishnan Ramanujam who is also the global head for enterprise solutions. Rajagopal is now an advisor at TCS. In March, TCS also appointed Aarthi Subramanian, its global head of delivery excellence, to its board.

"With the CEO being quite a long way from retirement you have leaders of similar age moving on to CEO/COO roles as they will never get the chance at TCS. Abid is one such person. They are also moving aside people to allow up-&-comers space to lead and grow," said Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO at IT outsourcing consultancy, Everest, said.
N Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS, has been in the role for five years and his contract was extended for another five last year. Some other top executives at the firm have also been there for decades. TCS did not respond to multiple mails seeking comment for this story.

Part of the reason for the moves is also a result of a problem that the Indian IT industry is just beginning to face. In the past, high-performing talent could always be given better roles as the industry was expanding into new service lines and geographies. But as the industry has grown and matured, new areas to expand into have grown scarce.

"What new roles will they grow people into? At the mid-level, you can always find new roles, but as the employees get more senior and valuable, and if the top management is stable, there is a natural ceiling," said a consultant with an outsourcing advisory. The consultant declined to be identified.

The moves aren't just at the top level. In April, TCS named Daniel Praveen as new CEO of its insurance business process outsourcing unit Diligenta, which ET had reported. The firm also named Rammohan Gourneni as head of TCS - France, a source with knowledge of the matter told ET.

Analysts say that though growth at TCS has slowed over the past few quarters, the management changes are unlikely to be a reflection of that.

"I wouldn't ascribe the changes to the quarterly results. TCS has been one of the fastest growing companies in the Indian IT sector. I would say it is the normal process in the company," Thomas Reuner, managing director of IT outsourcing research at consulting firm HfS Research, said.


That is something TCS' Chandra has also said in an interview in April with ET. "All of our units are run by very strong leaders," Chandra said. "So to be very frank, if you can take away one message, it's that our execution is solid. We have never had an execution issue. So, we are not going to rejig the structure for execution."

But the flipside of such management stability is that senior leaders with ambitions may have to look outside the company to fulfill them.

"I think some senior leaders like Abid who want a shot at the brass ring may start looking outside. You could see one or two leaders leave the company for roles elsewhere," Everest's Bendor-Samuel said.